Stonebacks
The Stoneback is a frightening-looking, armadillo-like creature that travels in herds. Appearance A stoneback is a grayish-green creature that's roughly the size of a buffalo and resembles a strange mix between a dragon and an armordillo. This creature has a tough scaley hide, four short legs, broad feet with massive claws, a long tail, a vaguely draconic head, sharp teeth, small ears, and a nearly impenetrable armored shell. The armor of these creatures (which gives them their names) appears to be made of some kind of organic, stone-like substance which is incredibly hard to crack or break. However, their underbellies are signifigantly softer and more vunerable, and a larger predator (such as a burrunjor) will find these creatures to be a helpless meal. This is easier said than done, and Behavior For the most part, stonebacks are a fairly non-aggressive species that prefer to keep to their own kind and rarely attack unprovoked. In fact, wild stonebacks have been known to regularly allow sentient creatures to gently touch them as long as said individual moves very slowly and does nothing to startle these armored behemoths. These fearsome-looking armored beasts feed mostly on the roots and tough vegetation that most other creatures are incapable of digesting. Stonebacks are in a constant state of migration, roaming across the open lands, valleys, and forests of Celestina and Wisteria in massive herds close to one hundred individuals, rarely staying in any area for more than a couple of weeks. Stonebacks have relatively poor eyesight and are virtually incapable of seeing things more than five or six meters away. To make up for this near-sightedness, these creatures have a highly developed sense of smell and hearing and are also very sensitive to vibrations in the ground. However, stonebacks are also very easy to startle, and so much as the flash of a camera or a small earthquake is enough to send these creatures into a destructive stampede. Trivia *Attacks by Earth Element Lords often result in stoneback stampedes up to thirty miles away. *The migration path of Stoneback herds doesn't really seem to be organized in any sort of way, and it is very hard to predict where these creatures will go more than a month ahead of time. The only sort of organization that seems to be present is that two or more stoneback herds will almost never be closer than a hundred miles to eachother at any given time. *Having a herd of stonebacks pass nearby a settlement is a rare occurance that is considered to be a sign of good luck, so long as the creatures are directed away from buildings and farmland. Whenever such an occurance takes place, most of the town's will customarily take a break from their normal routines and work schedules in order to make sure nothing sets the herd into a stampede. *Powered stoneback shell is considered to be a very valuable alchemical ingredient. Inspiration *The Stonebacks are inspired by a species of the same name from the G1 "My Little Pony" cartoon. Category:Creatures Category:Pseudodragons